Urban Cowboy Lodge & Resort in New York’s Catskills Expands

• Urban Cowboy Lodge in New York’s Catskills has new accommodations and offerings after purchasing Slide Mountain Inn next door.
• The newly rebranded Urban Cowboy Lodge & Resort now has 44 rooms, including two standalone houses, each with a full kitchen and four bedrooms.
• The property also added new amenities such as a pool, a bowling alley, shuffleboard, tennis courts, and an arcade.

Nearly six years after the 28-room Urban Cowboy Lodge opened in New York’s Catskills region, the property is expanding onto the adjacent 200 acres that previously housed the Slide Mountain Inn in Oliverea. Now both properties form the new-and-improved Urban Cowboy Lodge & Resort—with a bridge over Esopus Creek connecting the resort.

“We’d always planned on expanding. Rather than build, we took the adjacent resort,” Lyon Porter, Urban Cowboy’s cofounder, told Travel + Leisure. “When I first bought the lodge, I met the neighbor, Ralph Combe [owner of Slide Mountain Inn], and said, ‘Hey, if you ever want to sell, let me know first.’ We want to honor everything they’ve done.”

There are now 44 rooms total, including two new standalone homes: the four-bedroom, two-bath Opa’s Cabin, boasting a river-stone fireplace and a kitchen, and the five-bedroom, two-bath Slide Mountain Haus, which also features a kitchen. “These are amazing for friends sharing or for families to have their own separate space and a kitchen,” Porter said. “It gives us a completely new room type.”

In line with the property’s Western-inspired aesthetic, the new rooms are decked out with Pendleton robes and blankets and chalet-style decor with wood-plank walls. They also feature custom wallpaper and fixtures, plus hand-picked antiques. “We’re not doing a full renovation. We’re leaning into what was already there a little bit more and creating a little bit more of an affordable room price,” Porter added.

In addition to lounging by the 40-foot-long pool and playing on the tennis and shuffleboard courts, guests can also hike the six miles of trails that are now part of Urban Cowboy. The new Ralph’s Bar & Bowling, named after the owner of Slide Mountain Inn, has mounted moose and deer heads, along with original woodwork. It also features a dance hall and serves casual fare like burgers and fries.

Porter said he hopes to continue enticing travelers from New York City or anyone who needs a countryside break. “You can see the Milky Way [from here], and there’s no light pollution,” he said. “We’re leaning into outdoor activities like fishing and hiking.”

This summer, the property will also host DJs and live music acts.

“It’s very much the old Catskills model, when people who would go up for the whole summer and live up here and escape the noise in New York,” says Porter.

Nightly rates at Urban Cowboy Lodge & Resort start from $150 for the new rooms and $295 at the main lodge.